Ross Stewart and Band - Sells Out Voodoo Daddy's Showroom

Welcome to The House of All

House of All and Ravenous Hounds

Waterfront Studio, Norwich

Saturday, 27^th April 2024

Where do I start with this?  Cuckoo in the Nest?  Here is a Fall iteration playing brilliant new stuff.  I won’t over-analyse this, but…

 

But…mortality is a question that haunts us all and loss is part of living.  Steve Diggle speaks of going on without Pete Shelley in Buzzcocks.  Diggle is writing what he can, playing his own Buzzcocks songs of old, (with some of the crowd-pleasing Shelley fans' favourites obviously).  For him, there is no point to trying to recreate yesterday’s Buzzcocks, without Shelley.  At his stage of life Diggle doesn’t want to be singing songs about longing to be sixteen again. So, he is working on taking the melodic punk-pop sound to new areas. More strength to you Steve Diggle for that.

 

Which is my way of introducing the ghost of Mark E. Smith, who pops in and out of this House Of All show (or is he just in my head), not least when House Of All deliver a magnificent encore with, Lie Of The Land - which is a heart-felt tribute to the sadly-departed Smith.  House Of All maintain they have tried to bring with them all the good things MES introduced them to and it sounds like it. This is no tribute band, but it is one firmly founded on the very solid footings of that unique band. There is nothing wrong with that, is there?

 

This is a positive venture for the band and of course there has been sniping, but they are prepared to answer the critics and push on regardless.  As the song says If you can’t take it with you, don’t go. When you have lost someone, what are you going to do, give up?  No thank you. It is right to acknowledge that these musicians are Ex-Fall.  The sound is enjoyably Fall-like.  The songs are new.  The aural combination just as addictive.

Paul, from behind the counter at Sound Clash had told me about this gig only on Saturday morning. Tickets still available? I found one online, just spotting the early start.  I would just have time to get back after watching Mulbarton Rovers and Thetford Town scrap it out in a Thurlow Nunn Premier League play-off semi-final.  Thetford 2-0, in case you wondered.  That was entertaining enough, but I admit I had travelled to the Waterfront Studio with a curious mind.

Double drums, provide a weight to rock that those of us brought up buying singles for 50 pence, or maybe £1 still love, even though we shudder at the thought of being led in sing-alongs by a weirdo from Banbury dressed in tin foil.  Life is full of contradictions and re-writings of history.  Here House Of All are ceaselessly driven by the unrelentingly double drums. 

 

The drummed introduction to the set builds excitement and whets the appetite.  Something deliciously familiar is approaching from over the hill.  Here they come…

For all the heavily-hyped crap that members of The Fall had thrown at them by the dear band leader, one must remember that living in The Fall can’t have been too terrible when you listen to all those brilliant albums and feel the energy powering them along.  Each of these guys were, at some time, part of something very special, there has never been a band like The Fall. Collectively they made many very special records.  House Of All seem to have rekindled the unique spirit of that much loved band. They are a phoenix band, the AFC Wimbledon or The FC United of Punk Rock.  Saved by fans and made into something better than it had become, with apologies to City fans everywhere.  (When will there be an AFC City, by the way, or is shopping for trophies easier on a day-to-day basis?).

 

Back to the gig.  It was thrilling.  I loved it.  I approached with caution, left elated.

 

Martin Bramah is the front man.  He performs the lyrics.  The words are very carefully laid out in front of him on a brightly lit music stand.  I appreciate that care to deliver the songs properly.  I saw Lou Reed frequently forgetting his words at one of his last UK appearances, it was not how he would have wanted to be remembered.  This isn’t going to be happening with Bramah, not yet.

 

Questioning and cajoling, stressing key lines and gesturing for emphasis, all while making serious contributions with his guitar, Bramah grows into his part.  You can feel him relax into role as the set progresses.  He even invites the bloke in woolly hat at the front to come up and sing alongside him.  The lad has been echoing chorus lines between songs.  His shouts of “I am the cuckoo in the nest!” “I must get clean” and “Aim higher!” fill the brief pauses. Fortunately, he dared not climb on stage.  These enthusiastic and impromptu outbursts were handled by the band members with good humour, which  added to the sense of camaraderie developing between this evening’s thin audience and the veterans on stage.  Many of us have travelled a long way in our own way, but everyone there had been listening to the same soundtrack.  It was good to be in the same room together again.

 

I don’t have the words to describe the music using musical terms, but I must tell you about what I heard.  With the drums, the bass.  Yes, the throbbing bass.  With the double drums and throb of bass we have the essence of a rocking good time.  Then the guitars.  The guitar sound lies across the rhythms like beautifully enamelled nails scratching down your back.  Goosebumps.  A little discomfort, a lot of pleasure.  Lots of goosebumps.  It’s a heady mix. 

 

Then Bramah’s flat Mancunian tones, “Yes, I was born here.  No choice.  No memory. No rights. No history.” This is poetry too.  So much said in so few words.  The previously mentioned Cuckoo in the Nest is an excellent song.  I Must Get Clean is life-affirming, but also painful.  Struggles to get back on some kind of track, forcefully expressed. Excellent.

 

The set built with refreshing shifts in tempo and tone. Murmuration and Under a Crooked Sky, being two of the less punchy numbers, worked well in the progress of the show.  When we reach Aim Higher, There’s More andMagic Sound (which I absolutely loved) we are on the motorway, in the fast lane.  House Of All opened up the throttle and we had a great turn of speed until Each Ending, which indicated it was time to slow down for the exit, with a smooth and melodic conclusion.

 

The double tub-thumbing There’s More… came straight out of the creative vaults of the old band.  The repetition of the title throughout the song, following sparse, simply-phrased verses was like a mantra. There’s more. More. More. More. More. More.  Why did this stand out to me?  What have you got in the briefcase, parasite?  Those who feed off the creative, labels, management, critics, reviewers? I really took to it, whatever.

 

My favourite track was Magic Sound.  This was as much because of where it came in the set, as the steady beat and the cumulative impact of the relentless 4/4 pace of this track and the free-styling guitar solo running its scuzzy trail through the number.  I’ve finally found / the Magic Sound.  Simple stuff, on the face of it, but we all know less is more. 

All that House Of All have learned on their travels with and without Mark E Smith is the foundation for this great band.  They were all having a great time up there and that sense of having a great time permeated the appreciative audience.  It wasn’t a huge turn-out, but everybody had a good time.  Which is why we came. 

If there were a few more present we would have all been bopping around to this, but it wasn’t well attended.  I have to say the publicity for this show in Norwich was inconsequential. Had it been held at Norwich Arts Centre it would have been a sell-out, I believe.

 

I am not sure what is happening with UEA and its publicity for gigs, but maybe social media isn’t getting through to everyone, not like a poster would.  The gig notice board on King Street outside the venue is woefully neglected.  I haven’t a clue about what they have coming up. This gig was brilliant. The band deserved better.

 

A gig venue should have had lurid posters proclaiming up and coming gigs, but now all we get is a list of dates and names.  Where’s the glitz?  Where’s the sell?  The promotion? The pull?

 

A brief complimentary word about Ravenous, a band local to the area, who powered their way through a thundering thirty-five-minute set. They were very good.  All credit to whoever put them on the bill.  Ravenous have a strong, sharp edge to their sound. They deliver with passion.  They played nine solid songs, including one in which a Nintendo Gameboy machine was plugged into an amp as part of the number. Ravenous were very well received.  A great start to the evening, but next time bring your merch, lads. It's a chance to meet the paying punters, more than anything.

Finally, I just have to report that earlier in the day, a large Jaguar motor pulled out in front of me. Number plate MES something, something, something...spooky! 

~

Spencer Ide

Norwich

25th April 2024